1. Joseph, Baron Ducreux was a French noble, portrait painter, pastelist, miniaturist, and engraver, who was a successful portraitist at the court of Louis XVI of France, and resumed his career at the conclusion of the French Revolution.
11 Facts About Joseph Ducreux
1. 2.
Joseph Ducreux was made a baron and premier peintre de la reine, and drew the last portrait ever made of Louis XVI before the king's execution.
3.
When Joseph Ducreux went to Paris in 1760, he trained as the only student of the pastelist Maurice Quentin de La Tour, who specialized in portraiture.
4.
In 1769, Joseph Ducreux was sent to Vienna in order to paint a miniature of Marie Antoinette before she left the city in 1770 and married Louis XVI of France.
5.
Joseph Ducreux was made a baron and premier peintre de la reine in rewards for his services.
6.
Joseph Ducreux was given this appointment by Marie-Antoinette even though he was not a member of the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, which had been founded in 1648.
7.
At the outbreak of the French Revolution, Joseph Ducreux traveled to London.
8.
Joseph Ducreux's residence became an informal salon for artists and musicians, who commissioned portraits from him.
9.
Joseph Ducreux's oldest son Jules was a painter and infantry captain who perished in the Battle of Jemappes; several of his paintings still exist.
10.
Joseph Ducreux died on 24 July 1802 of an apoplexy while walking from Paris to Saint-Denis.
11.
Joseph Ducreux made several well-known self-portraits in the 1780s and 1790s, including one in 1783 in which he painted himself in the middle of a large yawn.